Excerpts from live gig reports, radio and record reviews
The Noseflutes ride the discordant guitar plain and are right at the core of
contemporary music.

NME

The Noseflutes…lead a rush of bands whose several
visions converge in a view of the future not so much apocalyptical,
as a society broken down into highly-motivated,
over-armoured fractions, beneath whose fire the rest of
us
scurry and dart.
John Peel

Driving. Cotton-wool in the guitarist’s ears, stopping from hearing the
dubious riffs he’s pumping out. The singer takes two. ‘This number
appeared on your radios’. A light-hearted romp ensues, complete with acrobatics,
a square dance violin, hooters and a swing rhythm. Me, I’m
just wishing was up onstage instead of furiously scribbling
in my notebook.
NME

So a singer in NHS specs hurls himself against a side
wall, mimes epilepsy, carries mike stands into the
crowd Dalek-style or grins
his way through Long John Silver
with the same prop. Then he sits down to shout ‘Rotting Honeymoon’ over
a noise squabble like walking past a rioting orchestra.
Melody Maker

These fellows are sane enough and would like to pick
Noel Edmonds to pieces with tweezers and feed his
flesh to exotic rodents.
Sounds

The three guitarists lounge around on the carpeted
stage, but Longley just can’t
stand still, pacing and swinging between the club’s
ornate lamp-posts, plastic flora and fancy chromium balustrades
like
Harold Lloyd playing The Fly
for a night. At every opportunity, the sex-beast singer
terrorizes his polite audience by rubbing his body against
them, gurgling
obscene phrases into his
microphone.
NME

The Noseflutes are wacky…and I love it
Cut

The Man sings like Nick Cave and Nat King Cole
for God’s sake.
Melody Maker

THE 101 MOST AWFUL ALBUM TITLES ON RECORD! [Zib Zob and his Kib Kob]
The People

Look at the Noseflutes themselves. They
are hideously ugly to a man. A singer
with a
deeply offensive
cheque jacket.
Melody Maker

Too fast to dance to, or too slow – once they’ve found a refrain
they don’t let go until they’ve had every last
inch out of it.
NME

A guitarist with a Hawaiian shirt,
wads of cotton wool poking out from
elephantine
ears,
and, horror
of horrors,
sideburns.
Melody Maker

The Noseflutes, Lords of misrule
with silly names.
John Peel

They move inside a looming sense
of the absurd, stumble into each
other
as if
possessed of
the urge to show
how daft it all is, we are riddled
with fault and idiosyncracy,
life is an eternal
shamble.
Melody Maker

I put on the first side and one
person ran out of the room
and the other
choked on his
mince
pie. The
Noseflutes
are perhaps, almost,
geniuses; ‘Girth’ features
an irritating hiccough all the way through. Learn to spray
catarrh with the Noseflutes, they advise. I agree, I agree.
Sounds

The tracks sound like unexpurgated
chaos, but instruments have been
deployed with
malice aforethought and
the final catastrophic
mix can only be the result
of considerable ingenuity.
Q Magazine

This is an album you need
to take time exploring,
delving occasionally
into
its delights and
its many twists
and turns – from the ridiculous ‘Lumbo/Harmony
of Dogs’ to the truly stunning ‘Holiday Time’ with
its insistently whining questioning vocal line, every track
a cracker! Musically it treads the
slender line between electric esoterics and considered
pleasure. Try listening to this and not go away whistling
its annoyingly
catchy riffs!
NME

Accompanying the sardonic
anachronisms are burning
guitar interludes
that manage to
rise above the
relative wackiness
through the
strength of their structures
and the abundant diversity
of layers encased within
the songs. ‘This is
my Home’ shows these qualities more than most with
its wry, abstract mangling of reality.
Sounds

The Noseflutes have emerged
from the shadows to
provide a plethora
imagination
and indignation
Sounds

The Noseflutes have
become the latest
(and perhaps
most ‘commercial’)
addition to Ron Johnson
Records with ‘The
Ravers’ EP,
five cuts recorded
for John Peel. Resolutely
intense with rich
veins of cynicism
and humour they skip
gloriously across
paths trod by Beefheart
and Zappa, welding
strength from
theoretical discord
and chaos on such
hypnotic nursery
rhymes as ‘Leg
Full of Alcohol’ and ‘Catcheel
Maskhole’ while ‘Serving
in Paradise’ ripples
with the waves of
mutant folk, sieved
through a rusty grater.
The lyrics don’t
take things easy
either and a dip
within shows the
band to have muscles
to
their
musical
spit. While the world
dances to fairy tunes
of the chart, the
Noseflutes are the
gnomes and goblins
of rock, the self-styled
Lord of drip bop.
Catch them,
it's better than
kissing toads.
What’s On

The Noseflutes continue
to make and release
records that redefine
the
term ‘idiosyncratic’.
There may be influencesof
Beefheart, Zappa
and Mark Smith,
but frankly no-one
sounds like the
Flutes and no-one
anywhere (thankfully)
writes songs like
Martin Longley.
Judge his visions
of a fractured,
worm-dark world
for yourself on
the
new 12’ (Ron
Johnson) with the
likes of the galloping
fun of ‘Rotting
Honeymoon’ (merrily,
merrily), ‘Hanging
A Scarface’ and
the calypso fun
of “Heartache
is Irresistible’.
Catch them live
and you’ll
likely hear trailers
from the next single
too, notably catching
the ears off-guard
with the tropical
lilt of ‘Charms’ before
assaulting them
with the nightmare
slashing teeth
of ‘Fruit
Fly’ and
the unsettling
rotting joviality
of ‘Families
Disappear’ as
the housewife strikes
back. Nosepicking
good.
What’s On

Zib Zob, you
can safely
assume, is
one of the
most stimulating
and diverse
albums
you
are
likely to
come across
all year.
Sounds

An array
of mulched
eclectic
inspirations,
wedded
to startling
accessibility,
proving
that the cake
can be
both eaten
and had.
Melody
Maker

OK. Here's what I was listening to mid-Eighties,....The Noseflutes' warped and deadpan funny take on Captain Beefheart.
Everett True

Calypso
shambles,
groovy
bits
and a myriad
of
eccentric
experiments
in
sound,
14
fruity
songs
onboard. Not art-rock,
just
non-formula and
all the
better
for
it.
Record
Mirror

They
make
Edward
Lear
look
like
a logical
positivist.
City
Limits

Pop
Jollity
behind
scratchy
squeaky
guitar.
The
Guardian

A
sardonically constructed
cultural crossroads,
a meeting
point for
African melodies,
tribal rhythms,
music hall
drama, American
art rock
and northern
intellectual cockiness.
The Noseflutes
proceed to
create an
extremely focused
sound, the
many components
being channelled
towards a
single mood
or atmosphere.
Melody
Maker

The
music
shines
throughout. ‘Lurkin In the Jerkin’ is a fine little
instrumental; ‘Dappled Offspring’ sounds like a dramatically on-form
Pink Floyd; it’s a gem.
Select

Intelligent,
moody sentiment
and tuneful
guitar-based music.
Time-Out

Throughout,
drummer Ron
Collins is
a rare
master, performing
with a
precision and
subtlety rarely
heard these
days, while
all around
him is
an intermingling
swirl of
guitars, violin
and keyboards
topped off
with all-together
now chorusing.
Sounds

The
band’s strengths lie in gracefully melodic bass and guitar
duets like Mellow Throated, with its lost schoolboy vocal line,
and the back-to-the-garage
cosmology of The Soiler
Q
Magazine

The
Noseflutes believe
not in
the fatal
attractions of
bruising barrages.
This isn’t an album that’s in a hurry to get anywhere, often content to
weave along amiably with occasional leanings towards World Music terrain. ‘The
Soiler’ fits the languid bill perfectly, revelling
in atmospheric strangeness. Beguiling and formula-free
stuff for
sure.
NME

Witty,
caustic, invigorating,
stimulating, unnerving,
surreal. All
these apply
without quite
capturing the
essence. Pop
with the
grinning skull.
Stick a
Murnau or
Lang on
the video,
pin up
the Geiger
posters, put
this on
the turntable
and party
till your
cortex bursts.
Brum
Beat

The
Noseflutes
are
critical analysts
a la
vinegar. Sax
scuttles across
limbo-ing bass;
shredded guitar
and diced
synth are
added to
vocal puke
and trampled
into your
carpet.
Underground

Don’t assume that a Sale of The Century organ sound or a beautiful
glockenspiel solo means they have shelved their distinctive hardness.
NME

They
know the
potency of
creaming ideas
up en
masse with
just enough
sense left
showing.
Melody
Maker

Indescribable
really! Go
check ‘em out for yourself.
Time
Out

The
Noseflutes
are
genuinely
exciting,
and their
sound
is
their own.
Melody
Maker

A
set
full
of
musical
as well
as
lyrical
and
visual
surprises.
NME

Obtuse and perverse...I feel like I'm laughing at the mentally ill...except like all great outsider art, you're laughing with it.
The Semanticist